i purchased this sacd yesterday. since then i have listened to it three times.the songs are all from the early fifties. though i am a jazz fun i would not say that i like the swing style. independently of this fact i did enjoy the wayella fizgerald sings. she is fantastic and if you are a jazz fun and want togo back to the roots buy this sacd. though it is a mono recording the performance is really a good one. i assume that mainly due to the recording procedures used in the early fifties and the age of tapes the sonics is far from the level weexpect today. this does not mean that the recording is not enjoyable it only means that the sonic quality is a bit limited. in spite of that i did not regret buying it since i can accept that the sonic level was not the same fifty five years ago as it is today. for jazz funs i highly recommend it. (because one can select stereo sonics only this is what i have done when evaluating sonics -- the recording is mono!!)

Supreme Jazz release of "Ella Fitzgerald" is quite a memorable listen! Considering the vintage of these classic recordings (1950 and 1953) these mono snippets of Ella'a career have been give the SACD treatment.

I think that with this in mind, fans of Ella will truely enjoy this recording...at least I do. Sonically this is NOT the best SACD in my collection and there is no question that the mono tape masters have been sonically altered to playback in stereo and multichannel DSD. I know this might be taboo for the audiophile-purists out there, but you might want to make an exception here. I should point out that these songs were not all sourced from the same place so soncial variation between tracks is quite noticeable...but again not a big deal for me with all things considered.

All i can say is last Friday night I sat back with my wife, lit a candle, had a glass of wine and played this SACD and we both really enjoyed it from start to finish.